office 2011 for mac compatibility

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heavyusr

83 posts

Master Geek

#123421 6-Jul-2013 22:28

Alot of my word and excel documents were created using Office 2010 for Windows
If i transferred these files to a Mac would they be compatible with Office for Mac 2011?
By compatible I mean open correctly without any errors and the layouts and formatting being the same

DrCheese

382 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#850287 6-Jul-2013 23:21

Almost all of the formatting will be retained, but not entirely. This is the bane of my life when co-writing research papers with collaborators who use Windows (I use a Mac).

David.

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#850307 7-Jul-2013 04:46

Its just safest to avoid using documents cross-platform all together. I do it on occasion but for text only word documents, because nearly no one I know uses Mac which makes it kinda annoying if a formatting issue occurs.

Usually, when I send a document I've made in word, I'll export it as a PDF to make sure its not going to mess up, its the safest way. But if the person is going to edit the docuement, then PDF obviously isn't very helpful.

Over all though I think it's not that bad, just test it on a spare windows machine if you have the chance before sending or something.

dclegg

2806 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#850323 7-Jul-2013 08:11

Tread very carefully.

I used to be the Treasurer/Secretary for our community athletics club. Part of this entailed maintaining a list of members for Athletics Auckland in an Excel spreadsheet provided by them. I initially used to use Office for Mac to maintain it, but it kept corrupting one of the columns, which had date validation backing it. As a result, no data could be entered in that column until I back levelled to an older, uncorrupted version of the spreadsheet.

myopinion

938 posts

Ultimate Geek

#850330 7-Jul-2013 09:33

I've had no issues with 2011 and compatibility.

Goosey

2839 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#850341 7-Jul-2013 09:55

+1, no issues using MS word, excel and powerpoint files created in their native OS / Versions and using these on a Mac.

I find people that do have issues usually havent followed good document creation ways of working I.E. use scungy 'spaces' instead of using 'tabs'.

Its always good to use the latest versions as the only glitch Ive ever had is with 90's and early milenium versions.

sir1963

3265 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#850353 7-Jul-2013 10:47

The areas of greatest issues are:
Embedded graphics objects, and Equations.

DrCheese

382 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#850400 7-Jul-2013 12:48

sir1963: The areas of greatest issues are:
Embedded graphics objects, and Equations.

Exactly. I agree. These are the two worst offenders.

I've also come across another problem this morning -- the font size was slightly different on a Mac and Windows version of one of my PowerPoint presentations and the text ran very slightly over the border. Not a huge problem, but annoying nonetheless. Same font, same font size, but they still appear slightly different.

David.

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alasta

6709 posts

Uber Geek

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#850411 7-Jul-2013 13:21

I have a lot of complex Excel spreadsheets that I've created at work on 2007 (Windows) and have never had any problem working on them at home on 2011 (Mac).

Having said that I find that on my Windows PC at work Excel has a nasty habit of corrupting files regardless of whether they've ever been opened or saved on another platform. Excel is a very flakey application IMO.

sir1963

3265 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#850475 7-Jul-2013 16:47

DrCheese:
sir1963: The areas of greatest issues are:
Embedded graphics objects, and Equations.

Exactly. I agree. These are the two worst offenders.

I've also come across another problem this morning -- the font size was slightly different on a Mac and Windows version of one of my PowerPoint presentations and the text ran very slightly over the border. Not a huge problem, but annoying nonetheless. Same font, same font size, but they still appear slightly different.

David.

Yeah, thats another annoyance, even with the same Microsoft fonts there can be pagination differences because there are subtle differences between the font rendering. Also the page boarders can differ.
In Windows if your system Zone is set to be US, even through you have set your page to be A4, it uses US Letter and fudges an A4 page, don't ask me why, this is why I use a Mac.